"You think a lot of things are fun when they involve fighting."

"This is probably because fighting's fun!"

Hug.

"Love you, Lion."

Hug! "Love you too, El. Best sister."

So there's a few tweaks to the latest array she'd like Bellona's opinion on...

Bellona: has so many opinions! And really enjoys working with her sister like this...

And, soon enough, King Thorin would like to have a working dinner with them.

Of course. He is the king, after all.

They're there at a reasonable time!

"Thank you for coming to talk to me," he says, once the pleasantries of A Meal are over (dwarven culture being very down on discussing serious business during a meal, or even sans a meal). "I'd like to discuss the matter of war technologies with you two..."

"We thought you might."

"I primarily have concerns about their proliferation and how easy they'd be to turn against us, if they're as effective as described."

"The easiest way to avoid proliferation is to not make them in the first place."

"And how many of the technologies already made can lead easily to such weapons?"

"Some. If the idea is planted."

"I'd rather they not come about at all. But if they will regardless, I'd rather my people be able to defend themselves."

"Your people already have a head start. Which is part of what I'm worried about."

"In the country we come from, there was a small region called Ishval. The Ishvallans were descended from different people than the rest of us, and because of this they faced great prejudice. Ishvallan children received worse schooling and the adults were denied equal opportunity for work. All manner of ill intent was ascribed to them, and hatred festered on both sides. One year, the government was able link a terrorist attack to an Ishvallan group. Hatred exploded into fury and across the country, a pogrom began. The army was sent into Ishval itself. The Ishvallans had no fortifications, no solider, no weapons. They could do nothing but die in the face of a trained force with superior technology."

"And die is what they did, in blood and fire. Not one in ten survived. Ishval itself is now a blasted ruin, broken buildings and dead ash choking the land. Nothing lives there. Nothing can live there."

He's solemn and quiet for a few long minutes, gazing into the distance.

"The dwarven people were once strong. The greatest inventors outside of the Blessed Lands. We traded, and we built, and our Halls had wonders not seen since the Second Age."

"The elves hunted us for sport, before the Sun first rose. And, when a group of dwarves working for an elven king lashed out after he refused to pay them, a war began that ended with the utter destruction of one of the two Western dwarven kingdoms - the second was destroyed when the elves and the gods of the Uttermost West went to war with the god Sauron once served, as collateral damage."

"The East has less of such, but - Durin's Folk and the houses of the West have long been refugees and outcasts, forced to work for pennies for ungrateful masters lest our children starve."

He pauses again.

"Were I to come to your country, I would say - these Ishvallans are much like the dwarves, and we should look to how their government treats them."

"I cannot promise my people won't someday become the ungrateful masters we once scorned. The long ages of the world hold many, many diverse fortunes."

Another, weighty pause.

"To me, the clear solution is for each people to have their own homeland, where they hold equal power to the others - I can promise to support that, to freely trade any technologies I am given, and to send teachers where we may, and to wield whatever power I have to prevent the dwarven people from turning to conquest, so long as I live."

"Though ensuring that everyone stands on equal footing, when the highest footing is earth shattering, is - difficult, and that is a fair argument against raising what we can do in war. Still, Sauron is among the earth shatterers; I would not see any of the peoples of Middle Earth conquered by him, nor by any king of any country."

"Even the orcs?"

Very long pause.

"If they swore peace, and did not bother us, I would leave them alone, and command my forces to do the same. If they, swearing peace, sought trade, I would trade with them - we still trade with the elves, after all. Though I would be more willing to trust orcs absent Sauron; he's said to be able to reach into their minds. I won't trade with someone I'm actively at war with."

"We don't want to give you weapons to cause another Ishval. But if we don't make the weapons, someone else will, and Ishval will happen anyway."

"A hard problem, and one likely not easily solved just by assassinating Sauron."

"Mm. It will have to be a continuous process. Led by people like you."

"And one we may or may not be on the frontlines of - though men are far less prone to grudges over generations than dwarves are."

"It was men who perpetrated Ishval."